


Out, Brief Candle

by 13lackbirds



Category: Dark Souls III
Genre: Angst, Blood Kink, Doomed Relationship, F/F, Guilt, Sadomasochism, Snuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-18 19:56:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8174062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13lackbirds/pseuds/13lackbirds
Summary: The eyes of a Fire Keeper cause her to want things forbidden. The Ashen One intends to make things right.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uumuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/gifts).



" _Please, kill me, and take these eyes away. Before I am drawn into the darkness, seduced by the thin light and the awful betrayal._ "

 

Firelink Shrine was different now, no longer a place that felt like a safe haven. The Ashen One felt like an intruder when she entered it, this time more so than usual. Instead of her usual sword, the Notched Whip she'd found in the Cathedral of the Deep hung on her belt, swinging gently against her hip with every step. A whip for punishing sin and cleansing it away...if anything it was the Ashen One who deserved to be flogged with it. But if she did this one thing, maybe she could exorcise her guilt and free the Fire Keeper from the vision that so plagued her.

As the Ashen One descended the stairs leading down to the central bonfire, the Fire Keeper stood from her seat near the flames and inclined her head in greeting. "Welcome home, Ashen One."

The Ashen One swallowed and bowed in response. Just a moment longer, she thought, a few more minutes of this pantomime. "My lady, give me strength," she said, kneeling.

When the Fire Keeper touched her raised hand she felt her body light up with the thrumming potential of everything she could be. She closed her eyes, focused on the power coursing through the warm fingers on her palm, and listened to the familiar prayer. It was easy to lose herself in the feeling of possibility, but she forced herself to take note of the undercurrent of resignation in the Fire Keeper's voice. She clenched her jaw and strengthened her resolve. 

After the light faded and the Fire Keeper took her hand away the Ashen One remained kneeling for a moment, not quite prepared to stand yet. Her throat felt tight; how odd that she could face down monsters thrice her size without flinching but this weaponless woman could strike her mute and terrified without even a gesture. After a moment the Ashen One felt a hesitant touch on the top of her head. She startled at the unexpected contact and the Fire Keeper drew back. "My apologies," she said. 

"No no, it's all right." The Ashen One stood too fast and the Fire Keeper -- should have flinched, but didn't. The Ashen One didn't deserve that kind of trust. "My lady...my heart has bent."

The Fire Keeper looked up, an expression of surprise on what was visible of her face. "Has it?"

"Yes," the Ashen One lied. A world without flame, a world where she could rest in the ground with no cares for gods or men or Lords of Cinder -- that was what she wanted. But when she weighed all of that against the cost of the Fire Keeper like this...it wasn't worth it. Ludleth was right that they were both prisoners to the flame, but the Fire Keeper had been content until the Ashen One had shown her the walls of her cage. The least she could do now was take the knowledge away again. "I will link the fire. I have the strength."

"A true Lord thou art," the Fire Keeper said with open affection and relief in her voice. She was fidgeting very slightly, picking at the edges of the bandages on her hands. "And ah...the other matter--"

"Yes." The Fire Keeper nearly sagged with relief, and the Ashen One felt as if she had just condemned herself.

"Now?"

"If that is what you want." The Ashen One paused. "...This is what you want?"

The Fire Keeper dropped her head and shifted her weight slightly from foot to foot, which was all the answer the Ashen One needed. "I want to be at thy side," she said uncomfortably. Suddenly she looked up again. "I speak the truth. I want to serve my purpose. I am a Fire Keeper, and it is my purpose to watch over the flame and those who link it, but..."

She reached up and took off the crown covering the upper part of her face. The Ashen One's stomach flipped at the sight of her eyes. They looked sick. The irises were filmy blue and nearly indistinguishable from the sclera, the edges of which were shot through with red veins. Dark bruises edged the Fire Keeper's eyelids and across the tops of her cheekbones. 

"I want to see the darkness beyond fire. And I want to forget I ever saw it. I want to be as I once was." She flexed her right hand, the one that she had used to touch the Ashen One. "I want...a great many things, none of which I...want to want."

"I'm sorry," the Ashen One said. 

The Fire Keeper bent, her thick hair falling to obscure her face, and set the crown carefully on the ground. "Thou owe me no apology," she said. "I am at thy side. Whatever course thou takest."

"Then let us take this one together."

The Ashen One held out a hand to steady her on the stairs. The Fire Keeper smiled, just a little, as she took it, and for a moment they both stood there looking at their linked fingers. Then the Fire Keeper's gaze flicked to the whip on the Ashen One's belt, and she lifted the hem of her long skirt and stepped onto the stairs. The Ashen One swallowed down a swell of guilty apprehension and walked with her, a step ahead to guide her on their way and lead her out of the shrine for the first time since she'd pledged herself there. 

The wind outside Firelink was bitter, and the cold stone of the tower seemed even more stark and hostile than usual. As they walked, the Ashen One could feel the Fire Keeper's hands trembling, even through her leather gauntlets. It took some effort to keep her own hands from shaking as well. 

"Are you frightened?" the Ashen One asked. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth.

"No," the Fire Keeper said. She certainly didn't _sound_ frightened, or sad, or even cold. But she was still shaking, and slowly the Ashen One began to realize that the Fire Keeper, who she'd grown used to seeing full of restrained despair, was now practically thrumming with restrained _excitement_. "Art thou?"

"Yes."

The room at the top of the grave tower was eerily silent, insulated from the wind outside. Even the air felt dead. Fitting enough for a mass grave, she supposed. The Ashen One stopped before they reached the edge of the pit and turned around to face the Fire Keeper, who was now wringing her hands, practically luminous with anticipation.

Seeing her stifled pleasure made the Ashen One flush with a mix of shame and mortified interest. _She_ had done this, her actions had corrupted-- 

\-- " _Seduced_ ," the Fire Keeper whispered in her memory --

\--the Fire Keeper, distorted her sense of self, made her so utterly miserable that she was looking forward to being flayed to death. It was her fault, another sin on her hands, and she had to put it right, but...

The whip she was now holding felt like it weighed as much as a dead body. She was sweating under her armor, and it was hard to keep her breathing steady. The cold air hurt her lungs, and the inside of her head felt full of heat and noise. 

The Fire Keeper must have noticed, because she stepped forward and put a hand on the Ashen One's arm. It was a simple thing, her touch on the gauntlet, the pressure almost too faint to feel, but every nerve in the Ashen One's body was screamingly aware of it.

The Ashen One took a step back, and then another. She bowed deeply. "'Mayst thou thy peace discover.'"

The first blow sent the Fire Keeper staggering. Blood blossomed thick and rich across her torn dress. The Ashen One's stomach lurched. She flicked the whip and brought it down again before her nerve could falter, and the Fire Keeper stumbled back with a little cry, her arms flung out to balance herself, just barely keeping her feet. 

The third blow finally brought her down to her knees and sent a splash of cast-off blood across the Ashen One's face. It was as startling as a lightning strike; she swiped at her eyes, half-blinded by the sudden red. She moved toward the Fire Keeper without thinking, and the other woman sat up and reached out like she couldn't resist it. The Ashen One couldn't help but catch her.

They stood there like that for one long moment, one half collapsed, one awkwardly bent to hold the other's arms and keep her upright. The Ashen One could already feel the Fire Keeper's blood seeping through her leggings where she clutched the fabric. She was panting. One of the thorns had caught her just above her ear and ripped a jagged line across her cheek to the bottom of her chin; the blood drained out in a steady stream and landed audibly on the Ashen One's boots.

The Ashen One tried to raise her weapon arm again and--couldn't. Her body felt consumed by fire, nausea and silken heat curling low in her belly and making her limbs weak. She tried to step back, to get some distance and put a wall of ice around her heart. The Fire Keeper's fingers slid easily off her clothing, leaving dark smears. The Fire Keeper wavered, thrown off balance, and tried -- failed -- to stand, and the Ashen One dropped the whip.

She couldn't do it. Monster, yes, betrayer, yes, but she wasn't someone who could flog someone to death, no matter how horrifyingly thrilled she'd felt to do this. It was one thing to cut down monsters and shrunken hollows or people who were trying to kill her, but this was wholly different. The Fire Keeper's fingers scrabbled at her breastplate as the Ashen One reached down and wrenched her up into a hard embrace.

"Please--" The Fire Keeper begged, blood smearing hot between their cheeks as her mouth moved against the Ashen One's ear. " _Please--_ "

She tasted not of blood or ash or magic, but the sensation of kissing her was still strong enough to knock a whimper out of the Ashen One and hit her hard between the legs. The Fire Keeper's body felt so frail. All that intoxicating potential wrapped up in such a fragile vessel. She hung almost limp in the Unkindled's arms, but her hands were vice-tight on the Ashen One's wrist and breastplate.

The kiss didn't end so much as metamorphose, their mouths sliding past each other so that the Ashen One found herself biting and sucking at the hinge of the Fire Keeper's jaw while the Fire Keeper ran her tongue over the smear of blood she'd left on the Ashen One's cheek. The Fire Keeper had gotten her hand around the Ashen One's breastplate somehow and worked two of the straps loose, and when the Ashen One drew back to yank the armor the rest of the way off the Fire Keeper pressed herself hard against the Unkindled's side, shivering. Her teeth were white in the gray light, and the Ashen One couldn't tell if her expression was a grimace or a smile.

"You want--?"

" _Yes._ "

Yes.

This, the Ashen One could do for her. Every touch left blood on the Ashen One's fingers and made the Fire Keeper gasp and flinch in pain, but she still arched into the Ashen One's hands like she needed her touch to live. She was burning up, incandescent, a towering bonfire of desire in a shattered, bloody body, and the Ashen One wanted nothing more than to give her what she wanted. 

They were wearing far too many clothes. The Fire Keeper was alternating between struggling with the fastenings of her own dress and dragging at the collar of the Ashen One's undershirt, so the Ashen One shed it for her, along with her bloodied boots and leggings. She spread her cloak on the ground and gently laid the panting Fire Keeper out on it like a prayer cloth, taking care to move her half-undone braid to the side so she wasn't lying on it. She fumbled a moment at the belt of the Fire Keeper's dress before deciding that it was already torn beyond repair and ripping it cleanly down the middle, the sodden cloth sending a haze of red droplets into the air. 

The Fire Keeper's torso and upper thighs were a mess of criss-crossing whip marks, all of them edged with torn flesh and oozing blood. The sight made the Ashen One's skin prickle with gooseflesh, but she only had a moment to dwell on it before the Fire Keeper leaned up again to kiss at her collarbones and guide her hands onto the Fire Keeper's body. Her breasts were small and fit pleasingly in the Ashen One's palms, and she whimpered when the Ashen One bent and closed her mouth over a nipple. This close, her skin radiated heat, and the smell of lust and fresh blood was nearly overpowering. 

The Ashen One swiped her fingers through the blood puddled at the base of the Fire Keeper's neck and smeared it deliberately down her between her breasts and across her stomach, stopping just at the edge of the Fire Keeper's pubic hair. She chased her touch with her mouth, and this time the taste of magic and iron leaped to her tongue, so strong it made her eyes water. She couldn't stifle a quiet groan, and the Fire Keeper echoed it, her belly quivering under the Ashen One's mouth. 

A few red droplets clung to the soft hair between the Fire Keeper's legs; the Ashen One caught them on her lips before moving further down, nudging her thighs apart and guiding her to drape her legs over the Ashen One's shoulders. The Fire Keeper arched her back, and her voice went up into a squeak when the movement dragged the Ashen One's hand across a wound on the side of her torso. The noise stirred something predatory and protective in the Ashen One's chest. She ran her tongue down the inside of the Fire Keeper's thigh at the same time she squeezed her wounded side again, and the Fire Keeper made the same noise, louder this time, her pained gasp edging off into something darker, sweeter. She was panting again, her chest heaving like she'd been held underwater, and when the Ashen One took her on her tongue she moaned like the Ashen One was touching her very soul. 

She was so wet, wet enough that the taste of blood was quickly lost under her clean, salty slick, and every stroke of the Ashen One's tongue across her clit and between her swollen lips made her jolt like she was being electrocuted. The constant movement made it hard for the Ashen One to set a rhythm, but the Fire Keeper didn't seem to care; she ran a hand into the Ashen One's hair and curled her toes against the Ashen One's back to give herself leverage for moving her hips. 

The feeling of taking her apart like this, the power she felt in bringing these noises from a woman who'd just been half-flayed without a scream, was intoxicatingly arousing. The Ashen One moaned against the hot flesh in her mouth and the Fire Keeper nearly wailed, thighs trembling uncontrollably on either side of the Ashen One's head. The Ashen One pressed down on the Fire Keeper's hip to keep her still, but the slippery blood and the Fire Keeper's writhing made her grip unsteady. Every time her hand slipped and dug into torn flesh, the Fire Keeper keened helplessly, muscles twitching under the Ashen One's mouth. When she came she let out a series of desperate, surprised gasps, every muscle in her body trembling. Through it all the Ashen One kept her lips wrapped around her clit, tongue moving steadily to draw out the Fire Keeper's orgasm as long as possible. 

When at last the aftershocks had begun to fade and the Fire Keeper's limp hands slid from her hair, the Ashen One drew back. Her jaw ached a bit, and the heavy thud of arousal between her legs was intense enough it almost hurt, but those were small matters. The Fire Keeper was still breathing hard, watching her with those frightening eyes, her mouth open and inviting. The Ashen One gently slipped the Fire Keeper's legs from her shoulders and crawled back up her spent body to cup her face and kiss her again, offering her own taste back to her. The Fire Keeper accepted with a sigh, her eyes sliding closed. Blood and sweat smeared between their breasts as they breathed against each other.

After a long moment the Ashen One broke the kiss and leaned her forehead against the Fire Keeper's. This close up, the bruising under her eyes looked even worse, lurid purple blood puddled under the skin. She stroked carefully along the paintbrush-thin edge of the Fire Keeper's eyelashes, then lifted her head and kissed the Fire Keeper gently on each closed eye. When she drew back again the Fire Keeper's mouth twitched and she made a noise like the beginning of a laugh. Without opening her eyes, she reached up to take the Ashen One's hands in hers. She brought them to her mouth and kissed the bloodied palms, then guided them down to rest over her throat. 

And here, again, at last -- her promise that she'd sworn to fulfill, her final chance to refuse betrayal. It would've been easier to cut her own heart out.

The Ashen One stroked the vulnerable skin. "You won't remember this?" 

The Fire Keeper shook her head almost imperceptibly. Her face was pale under the blood and sweat. 

"I will remember it for you," the Ashen One said. "And be more careful of you next time." 

"I want this," the Fire Keeper said suddenly. "With you. It is not meant for me to _want_ , but--" Her fingers tightened on the Ashen One's wrists. "Even as I once was, to have this again--"

It hurt to hear. It would hurt a lot more to remember the next time they saw each other with this unbreachable gulf of memory between them. "Hush now," the Ashen One said gently. "We will face the fire together soon. But rest now for a bit."

"Thank you," the Fire Keeper said, her voice faint with exhaustion. A tear edged its way from under her closed eyelid. The Ashen One wiped it away carefully. 

The Ashen One bent and kissed her one last time, taking a long moment to savor the contact. Then she rose up on her knees to get better leverage, crossed her thumbs under the Fire Keeper's jaw, and pressed down. 

The Fire Keeper made a small noise as the air pushed past her lips, but she didn't struggle, even when the biological craving of her body for air should have overwhelmed her. Her wild writhing of a few moments prior was gone, locked again behind a wall of self-denial, and even with her chest and throat spasming desperately for air she barely stirred. 

She didn't open her eyes, either.

When her stopped breath at last rattled out of her body and her corpse went limp underneath the Ashen One, there was a moment of stillness in which the Ashen One found herself looking at the Fire Keeper's closed eyes. She half expected them to open of their own accord, still seeking the light beyond darkness. She reached up and had just barely brushed the end of one blonde eyelash when it began to burn away, a whirlwind of ash dissolving the torn body underneath her until only a pair of eyes remained, encased in a softly glowing sphere of souls.

The Ashen One sat back and curled her arms around herself. Her skin was sticky with drying blood, and she shivered with suddenly renewed awareness of the chill. She dragged her discarded leggings over and dug in the pouch on her belt until her fingers closed around an Ember. The warmth of fire in her veins made her feel a bit less empty. 

She pulled her bloodied cloak around her shoulders, laid back on the dead stone, and closed her eyes with a sigh. In the shrine below, the new-old Fire Keeper would be raising herself from the coals at the base of the coiled sword, unmarked and sightless and just as she should be. When the Ashen One licked her lips she could still taste her on them.

The Ashen One needed to get up too. She had a purpose to fulfill, a duty to the dying Flame just as the Fire Keeper did. 

She did not move. 

The rock beneath her was as cold as the grave she'd risen from not so long ago. It would be easy not to stand again. As easy as falling asleep, as easy as letting a candle burn down. 

The light from the Fire Keeper's forbidden eyes gradually faded from the inside of the Ashen One's eyelids, and when she breathed in all she smelled was blood. She knew she would get up and go on, back on her search for the fled Lords, back to the Shrine that now felt like a charnel house, back to the First Flame that had burned her down to ash. She had to. The gears of the world ground steadily onward and she still had her part to play. Soon. 

But. Not yet. There was, as she'd told the Fire Keeper, time for rest. 

She imagined embers dancing in the darkness at the far edge of her mind's eye.


End file.
